Is this enough to break our family up over?

[Lametta]

DH drinks ALOT. We have rules in place re his drinking. He is not allowed to drink in front of the dc. He usually drinks at least 6 nights of the week and it is anywhere between 4 and 10 cans of lager per night after dc have gone to bed. He usually sleeps on the sofa as I cannot bear his drunken snoring. This morning I woke up to him having split beer all over the carpet and he had urinated on the sofa. It is not the first time this has happened.

From reading up on alcoholism I would probably call him a functioning alcoholic. He holds down a job (does well at it really). He is great with the dc apart from not giving them as much time as he could or should. He works long hours and spends a lot of time in bed recovering from his drinking. When he is not drinking he is helpful with them, however this is after repeated nagging over the past few years. He used to be awful, never did anything practical for them and would become abusive if I pushed the issue.

As far as our relationship is concerned, we don't really have one. He used to be very controlling and verbally abusive towards me but over the past 6 months I have managed to improve this with a policy of zero tolerance. Just got fed up with it really and I think he senses that I came to the end of my tether with it, I used to allow a lot of his nonsense because he had a bad childhood and I made a lot of allowances for that. I do not make these allowances any more.

I am frightened that even though we dont really argue about his drinking any more and he does not drink in front of dc they will still be affected by it. I do not drink at all, ever. I thought that my dc deserved at least one parent who did not drink.

Can anyone who is going through anything similar tell me how they dealt with it please? Is this enough to break up a family. My dc adore their father. Help me out please. I am scared I am taking the easy road all the time for a quiet life and I should just be kicking his arse out the door. Have name changed.

Poor Lametta - I really feel for you. My Mum is also a 'functioning' alcoholic and even now that my sister and I have grown up, it still affects us to this day and age.

For me the worst part is that I can't even say we had a bad childhood, she always looked after us, we always did things together as a family. So in a way it would be easier if she was an awful mother, that way it would be easier to distance myself from it.

What I am trying to say is - your children may not notice now what is happening but they will in time and I cannot imagine that it will not affect them one way or another.

As you have found out, unless an alcoholic is willing to change and accept s/he has problems AND is willing to do something about it, there is not an awful lot you can do about it. But as OP has pointed out, it is also your life and are you willing to put up with it for the rest of your life?

Its always easier said to leave a partner than actually done but maybe it doesn't have to come to this. From your DH behaviour, he must still want to be with you or he would not have changed his aggressive behaviour towards you once you announced your zero tolerance so there is hope I guess. You just have to push it one step further now. Apply the same no nonsense attitude towards his drinking. Its either his beer or his family.

Sadly some people have to hit rock bottom before they realise what they have / are about to lose so maybe drastic steps are needed. It doesn't always have to go as far as divorce but perhaps if he is not willing to seek help, he could move out for a couple of months and is only allowed back once he has cleaned up his act. I don't know how feasible this is but perhaps you can continue your marriage once his problems are better handled.

And I really hate hearing about this bad childhood crap. Well sorry, we all have our problems but being an adult also means you have to take responsibility for your life. Tell him to seek counselling as this would be far more constructive than his drinking. Afterall, he still wakes up to the same childhood shite after a night drinking so it doesn't really solve anything, does it.

I'm sorry you are in this situation, having small kids and no money certainly doesn't help but no point if you are miserable for the rest of your life.

Hope you can work it out. Big kiss.

fantastic post schnullerbacke, agree with every word you say

< clears lump from throat >

So sorry, but have to be honest - this sounds like a terribly unhealthy situation for you, and particularly your kids, to be in. I would start thinking quite seriously about a change.

I would leave if that was my partner. If they then came to their senses and got help, I would be quietly pleased, but it would take a lot for me to relax and trust them, IYSWIM. I think we can get used to certain situations, and be rather unhappy without knowing it. And I think if you and your dc were away from him, you'd realize how much happier you were, and how much his drinking was in fact impacting you and them.
Basically, he's probably not going to take the initiative with this, so you have to. If that's what you want. Ultimatums, leaving, going on a break etc. Don't wait for him to change, because he probably never will. Take control of your life.

It sounds like he is self-medicating to deal with his awful childhood.

Obviously this doesn't make the drinking ok.

Some sort of medical help cutting down (he is going to feel very very bad indeed going cold turkey - it might even be unhealthy for him, tbh), and or therapeutic help dealing with the underlying problem, sound like a good idea.

Or AA?

I only support him in that I protect my dc from the repercussions."

No you do not because you cannot fully protect them from his abuse or his ongoing alcoholism. Children are preceptive; they're picking up on all this and what are you both teaching them about relationships?. We learn about relationships first and foremost from our parents.

Currently Lametta you are enabling him - you are his crutch. Many women in these situations end up as enablers - how many times have you covered for him/made excuses for him on any occasion?. Enabling him does not help him or you.

There are no guarantees here - he could lose everything and still go on drinking. He is not yours to fix or to save.

What do you get out of this relationship now?. His "bad childhood" as well is actually no excuse; many people have crap childhoods and don't end up either as abusive or alcoholic.

Children who grow up in households where one or even both parents are alcoholic often go on to form relationships as adults with alcoholics themselves. You DO NOT want to leave them such a damaging legacy - an alcoholic parent is a toxic parent. Growing up in all this for them will bring them their own set of problems - children of alcoholics often become super responsible for those around them.

He won't seek any help unless he realises that he has a problem, in his case a myriad of issues. He likely also underestimates how much he drinks each week and how long he drinks for. These people are extremely good at denial.

You have no actual relationship to speak of so why are you hanging on in there?. What keeps you with him now?. Your children will still have some sort of relationship with their Dad (well, if he keeps up his end of the deal) even if you are no longer together - their interests as well as yours come first and should come first now.

You are only responsible for your own self ultiamtely as well as your DC's - not him.

If you make an ultimatum as well you will have to stick to it to the letter. He will not take you seriously otherwise.

www.nacoa.org.uk

As well as Al-anon Lametta I suggest you read the above website as well.

It sounds like he needs counselling, not just a 'cure' like hypnotherapy to deal with the symptoms.

I'm guessing that he feels he would be happier if he didn't drink so much, he just can't stop because it helps him not feel the pain. Problem is - it only buries that pain and makes it worse.

He should look for counselling for himself, for his own future, regardless of what happens to your marriage.

Is he really going to wait until the worst heppens - losing his family?

yes it is. I too have rules in place egarding dh's drinking. he drank fri and sat nights until he passed out. he insisted that he couldnt remember nything the next day, so if we had a row and he broke something- he didn't remember. he doesn't piss himselfl, but i make him sleep on the sofa and he goes to back door and pisses somewhere in the vacinity of the grid. this rule came into place after he went to corner of bedroom to piss, after he became very angry and scarey if i tried to make him to to bathroom, after i was petrified of asking him for more quilt or a pillow. so this rule has been in place for a while.

he insists he isn't an alcoholic - but i think he is - i think its an addiction, he is addicted to being drunk all weekend as i am to smoking.

i went to visit relatives an i told him to look after my children and look after my house, my first bought house. my child was god knows where staying at god knows whose house. and he nearly set the house on fire with my other child in it after falling asleep cooking pork chops.

i couldnmt do this everyday - 2 days a week is too much - i don't know how you do it.

dh got pissed as per, i was pissed after going out with a friend 2 weeks ago, i became bolshy me, instead of whatever accomodating pissed up dh me, and we have pissed up row - becuase i insist he sleeps downstairs.

dh throws a computer chair - breaks the fucking window. i am mortified becuase all the neighbours could hear us obviously.

so after writing a note and leaving my wedding ring - and totally meaning it. he says he has given up - its been 2 weeks, i am sceptical to say the least.

but thats just a grain of sand in the 20 years of trying to keep this relatonship going.

and if i was at the beginning like you - i wouldn't wish those years on anyone. i dont leave becuase i love him, my life has been with him, he has good points too - but no, i wouldnt advocate those years to anyone.

Thank you all so so much for your unbelievably supportive and helpful posts. Thanks for sharing your own experiences with me. Everything you have all said is true and that is why I love MN because now I can articulate what is happening and pass it on to H. The zero tolerance to the verbal abuse that is now in place is as a direct result of advice given on here as well.

There are so many more things I could tell you about his drinking, the ways I have changed my own life to accommodate the fact that he will be drinking ie not going out at night since the time he locked me out and I could not get in, he was too drunk to hear the bell and it woke my dc up. I could hear them crying inside but I couldnt get in.

Schnullerbacke, sadly I think that he will have to hit rock bottom before things change, he gives lip service to having a "problem" but I know he doesn't really believe it. His family don't help either.

Attila, your advice is (as always) spot on. That is my biggest fear really, that my dc will grow up becoming or marrying alcoholics and although I think I am protecting them, obviously they are a lot more aware then we think. My ds is 5 and there was an ad on the other day for champagne, he asked what it was and I said it was a drink, he asked if he would like it and I said "no, it is only for grown ups" and then he said from nowhere "Daddy's favourite drink is beer". I don't think he should know that at 5.

I read your other thread about your daughter Custardo and really felt for you and now it comes out it was because you dh was drinking and did not know where his daughter was. I see this being my future, things like that would be happening now if I didn't hold things together all the time.

I have given him the ultimatum and I quoted the "only living half a life" bit to him. He agreed and he didn't drink last night. He says he is not going to give up completely but will not be drinking in the house any more. Zero tolerance will be used with this, I have managed to change other things so maybe it could work. I have heard it all so many times before though. I think I am at a place where I could tell him to leave now though. Going to al-anon as well. At the back of my mind until a year or so ago I didn't really believe he had a problem, just liked a drink even though we were being affected by it so majorly. Now I know and I think al-anon will help with practical measures now. Thanks again.

no he was sober when he lost my daughter, hes just a fuck wit.

i know what you mean about accomodating his behaviour. and planning around it - i have my own bank account, my own car. i have a folder with important documents in - i am ready to leave at a moments notice. this has been inplace since i went to a refuge 2 years ago, i wont be in that position again. that was down to his addiction to an online game, compounded by drinking. Oh the stories i have - since moving to this house in july, every weekend has a story, if its not losing my kids - one or the other, nearly burning my child and house its going missing for three hours after flirting with a girl in a pub - which isn't usually his style.

and people ask me - who kmnow in real life - how things are - and i always say fine - its better - but its just going from one promise to another.I do that becuase i love him, and half of the time 50% of a week, he is a good person. i have issues, clearly.

"Every weekend has a story". Well I can't half relate to that. Only I would say "Every Bender has a story". There is the "Five day missing over the Rugby World Cup Bender" "The three day missing when dd was only two weeks old bender", the "I have been mugged and lost all my money and phone on the second day of my football trip to Athens bender", "the walk out and leave my wife in a central london nightclub/restaurant/pub without her realising benders", the "the sneaking downstairs for a drink at 5 am while staying at inlaws bender", closely followed by the "leaving my ds in WHSmith on the train station bender" (luckily I was standing outside observing to see if he would actually do it and sure enough............) and there are so many more but I would probably be recognised if I wrote them. I have gained some REAL clarity into my situation while writing this post.

It's a really tough situation to be in and I can completely empathise. the problem with drinking is that it is more sociably acceptable than other addictions. When I used to tell my exp that he drank too much he would immediately compare himself to x,y and z who went out more often and drank just as much. What he wouldn't and still doesn't accept is that x,y and z probably had problems too. My xp has always drunk, but because he doesn't get up in the morning and reach for a bottle of vodka he will not accept he is dependent. He drinks every night apart from when he is on night shift, often spending money we certainly didn't have when we were together. I challenged him frequently, as often he became abusive, but he wouldn't even give up for a day not one day he had to drink. He too had bad issues that have never been dealt with, i tried and tried to help but eventually got to the point where i knew that i just couldn't be that person anymore.
There were most definately other issues, but i feel without the drinking issue we could possibly have worked them out, over the years the drink has eaten away at his personality and left him angry and lost. He is a fantastic father to our four children and holds down a good job but it just wasn't enough anymore. He moved out two weeks ago, I still love him yes and will always be in his life, but something changed in me and I knew the cycle had to be broke.
I really hope you find a positive way to move forward x

lol, amazing isn't it. i was a bit 'wtf' miself when writing mine.

exh did those kind of benders, he disappeared for 3 days once after saying he was popping out for some fags

he came back to find his clothes in bags outside and begged me for another chance

i told him he could have his drinking lifestyle or his family (dd1 was about 2.5) but not both

at that point he said he would give up drinking for a year and asked me to marry him, and more fool me i said yes and we got married a few months later

he didnt drink for a year, but a year and a day later he started again, he had just been counting the days til he could again, and in his mind the fact he had been sober for a whole year meant he had no drinking problem

it got progressively worse after that over the years, and his behaviour towards me went downhill too

the final straw came when he went out one morning and didnt come back, then turned up with the kids in the car after school and he was pissed

i was furious, we were already going to relate, so the next session i told him it was over, and he stormed out

i got back to the car and it was like nothing had happened, he totally ignored everything i had said, and carried on drinking

it took a few more months before he finally left, and only because he thought i was having an affair, but tbh i didnt care what he thought as long as he went

he is still an alcoholic, blames everyone else for his problems (especially me) , and i doubt he will ever change, because he wont admit he is an alcoholic or do anything abut it

he thinks saying he has a "drink problem" is enough, and therefore he has dealt with it

my dh has at last given up alcohol.
it has only been a month but i am now
but only slightly cos i am worried about christmas and after, and worried that he told his brother it was only until christmas. his brotehr doesnt recognise his problem/has problems of his own.
it does seem to have taken a whole month for him to come out of himself though. we have had quite a few situations where drinking is associated, as a relaxant, but have been fine. we havent broached the subject of christmas. we will be with people who love to drink at christmas and i can imagine we will be a pair of sourpusses!

a month ago he was drinking 2 or 3 bottles of wine per night. i am pretty sure that is too much. i coudl only drink 1 or 2 glasses!
however in the beginnign our relationships was pub based, as i suppose are others, only may be more so.

oh and ds, 13, recognised the Homer Simpson in him a while ago.
it is not just the drinking it is the sleeping all day that is the worst. i hated weekends. hated holidays. loved school holidays when it is just me and dcs.

this is such a sad thread

these men (and women too of course) are living only half a life

custardo, I had no idea you had such issues in your marriage, you seem like such a strong person

lametta, those examples you give are horrendous, you have to get out of that relationship as it is

I have just remembered the very worst thing at all. He got so drunk that he was "mugged" yet again and someone got hold of his phone and started texting everyone on it including the 9 month pregnant wife (me). There were references to this in the text messages on the phone and they sent me awful text messages about my pregnancy and the baby. I can't even repeat what they said.

The next day I didnt feel up to to attending a family party and he rang me up (he had gone straight there from his bender) and told me I had "really bad manners" and was "self centred". He maintains to this day that I overreacted about it and he cannot really be held responsible because he was drunk as he could have lost the phone when sober and I might still have got the awful text messages. This btw is around the 7th phone lost/stolen when he has been drunk. I am getting through Christmas and then if nothing changes he is going. I am finished with it.

so sorry lametta

nothing could be worse than this knife-edge you seem to be living on

it got to the stage where i felt anything had to be better than the life i was living with my h

Lametta,

re your comments:-
"He says he is not going to give up completely but will not be drinking in the house any more".

This pronoucement of his of course is not okay either. This so called promise of his will be broken. He does not want to change.

Well he's said it and he is therefore not going to change. If he is indeed alcoholic (and I have no reason to believe that he is not) then he cannot have any alcoholic drink ever again not matter what the occasion or where he is be it at home or elsewhere.

"I have managed to change other things so maybe it could work"

Lametta, lametta, lametta

Why are you hanging on in there?. You cannot keep enabling him or acting as his saviour or rescuer. This is what you are doing by being there - you're his crutch. He thinks that you will put up with anything because you have done so to date.

This is NOT going to work at all and I think this is doomed to failure - but I think you're going to have to realise that for your own self. You're not fully at that point yet.

I feel for your children as well as yourself; they are being emotionally harmed here (they know an awful lot more than you perhaps realise, your son's comment about beer being Dad's fave drink for instance) and I am so sorry to be writing that.

Lametta,

I've just read your most recent message.

TBH I would not even hang on till Christmas - your Christmas will likely be ruined if he drinks at all because he has not got the capacity to rein it in.

His primary relationship is now with drink - everything and everyone else comes a dim and distant second even if it figures on his list which it likely does not.

And he acted like a complete re his mugging. Also people generally speaking are more likely to be attacked when they are drunk.
They are truly selfish and will look to everyone else except themselves to blame.

Mrs GeneHunt

Your H will likely relapse as well with such an attitude. Denail and alcoholism go hand in hand and many women in these situations end up as their partner;s enabler. Which does no-one any favours. Feel for both you and your son because this is not living, this is a soulless existance dominated by his drinking. The merry go around of alcoholism and denial thus continues.

Have you ever spoken with Al-anon?. You need their support.